I don't know if this is the right forum for discussing this, but here goes.

To tell a little about myself, I was raised in a fatherless household and my mother was subtly dominating--being very demanding except when "crying" was more effective. I think this has had a lot to do with the way my thoughts have developed regarding the idea that the male should be dominant over women.

I came to realize that this idea does not have a biological basis as much as it does a cultural basis (culture is predominantly, in America anyway, a product of theology--"woman, keep silence in the churches" type thinking.

I have become, after a lot of struggle, and with the help of the writing of Dan Barker (who characterizes himself as a "feminist" and the videos of Jaclyn Glenn, who characterizes herself as a "gender equalist (if that is a word), a believer in the equality of the sexes.

Problems arise in our Christian-dominated society because of male egos, which are, oftentimes, over-inflated, and the fact that some women want to be dominated. I remember the song a few years ago Where have all the cowboys gone?.

But, since male domination is a cultural phenomenon rather than a biological phenomenon, we have the opportunity to become equals through changing our culture. A woman does not have to be a man for her to be equal, and a man does not have to become a limp noodle (as is suggested by patriarchate theologies) to consider women as equals.

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.--Voltaire.

"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason is like administering medicine to the dead." --Thomas Paine.

It's something I'm passionate about. I'm working to change it in my little slice of the male dominated professional world. At home, I think it's mostly about education. When the woman is educated it's much harder for the male to assert his dominance. Hence the goal of fundamentalist religion to suppress the education of women.

Me, I tend to like girls more than boys, and generally think they are more wise.

The notion that males are dominant is an illusion females have allowed we guys to enjoy, while they run the world from behind the scenes.

Males have always been physically stronger, that's true. And that's meant that in order to have any power at all, women had to be smarter. For thousands of years, they had to be smarter than males, and so they became so.

The evidence of this more developed intelligence is now becoming blatantly obvious in the modern era as women outpace men in higher education, the doorway to power in the modern world.

Guys think they are doing women some big favor when they grant them equal status. I suspect women are smiling quietly behind our backs while we bestow this big honor upon them. :-)